Wolff laughed off such suggestions, as he said: “It’s Bernie! I just had a game of backgammon against him and I lost.

“He comes in and throws a hand-grenade and it’s in the papers – it’s great.

“How the news runs these days we are oscillating between exuberance and depression, and back again, and when things are not going in the right direction it’s doom days and when you win two races in a row it’s the ‘Mercedes dominance destroying the sport’.

“Maybe it’s somewhere in the middle.

“Lewis is remarkably easy with these kind of things.

“All of us very much respect Bernie, but we have also learnt to take the comments with a smile. It’s the same way he does it.”

He added: “We haven’t collectively performed on the level we would have wanted to.

“There were three races we could have won and we didn’t, that’s a fact.

“I still see the fire and desire very much burning in him [Hamilton].”